More than three days after its assistant general manager was severely beaten up, Air India (AI) has not taken any action against the culprits.
More than three days after its assistant general manager was severely beaten up, Air India (AI) has not taken any action against the culprits. Another embarrassing aspect for AI was that the incident happened in presence of members of a high profile Parliamentary committee on the welfare of scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST). The employee, Pravin Gangurde, 53, has been admitted to Hinduja Hospital and is recuperating.
On October 26, Gangurde, who is also the president of Akhil Bhartiya Valmiki Samaj Vikas Parishad was beaten up in front of the committee members. The committee was in Mumbai to verify the allegations of bogus caste certificate when the incident happened.
Gangurde, assistant general manager — administration, industrial relations and system, was beaten up by 40-50 colleagues on Tuesday. He has sustained injuries on his head, neck, shoulders and legs and has been in the hospital for four days.
“The committee with 17 members of Parliament was in Mumbai to investigate complaints of bogus caste certificates where it was alleged that more than 242 AI employees from the ST category had submitted such certificates,” said an AI source.
“Gangurde, who is from the SC category, met the committee at 8.35am to apprise them of the fact that many senior officials, including LP Nakwah, president of SC & ST Association in AI, have not submitted caste certificate for last 15 years for verification,” he said. Some 150 people from the association were present at Hotel Novotel, Juhu where the committee was put up. “He went ahead to make a presentation to them when the employees pounced on him and hit him,” he said.
The security of the hotel intervened and took an injured Gangurde out from the venue through the backdoor. “But rather than taking him to the doctor or calling the police, he was kept for 20 minutes in one of the rooms. It was only later that he was taken and admitted to Hinduja hospital in Matunga,” he said.
According to the Delhi high court order in 2004, National Aviation Company India Limited was supposed to verify caste certificates of the SC, ST employees. It was only in April that the chief vigilance officer of AI undertook the exercise as certain influential employees in AI tried to stall the investigation of the caste certificates.
The AI spokesperson was unavailable for comment.
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